


do-si-do

by raddled



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, spoilers up to manga chapter 388
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:33:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23481736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raddled/pseuds/raddled
Summary: “Hey, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi said cheerfully. “What’s up?”Kei straightened, cabbage in hand. “Tetsurou,” he said ponderously, “has turned into a baby.”There was a brief pause. “Wow,” Yamaguchi said. “That is a problem.”-Kuroo turns back into a kid. Tsukki has to deal with the rest of it.
Relationships: Kuroo Tetsurou/Tsukishima Kei
Comments: 6
Kudos: 162





	do-si-do

**Author's Note:**

> i spent most of the week doing research for a completely unrelated au and then my brain was like, fuck that!!! kuroo turns into a baby!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> spoilers up to manga chapter 388/wsj issue 16 (2020)

Kenma called just as Kei was starting the laundry. Kenma never called him, which is how he knew it must be serious, but Kei also wasn’t in what you could call a great mood. So. He let his phone ring a little longer, just until he finished pouring out the detergent and could slam the lid shut, and then he picked up.

It wasn’t great news.

“Well,” Kei said, once Kenma had given him a brief rundown of the morning’s events. “I suppose that means he won’t be joining you for the competition, then.”

“No,” Kenma agreed. “I don’t think he’d enjoy it, either.”

Kei leaned his weight against the washing machine, the mechanical hum comforting and refreshingly normal. He looked up at the shelves where they put all of their cleaning materials and stared down a bottle of fabric softener. _Aroma Natural_! it told him cheerfully. He sighed.

“I can go meet you, if you like,” he said. “If you don’t mind waiting a bit.”

“It’s fine,” Kenma said. Kei heard him cover the phone and speak to someone else, the sound of it muffled. Then Kenma said to him, “I can head back there now, it’s faster. I rented a van for the weekend.”

“All right, if it’s not too much trouble,” Kei said. He thought for a second, and then said, “If you don’t mind stopping at Aeon on your way back, there are a few things…”

“I can do that,” Kenma said. “Just text me the list.”

“Thanks,” Kei said, pushing off from the washing machine. “I owe you one.” Kenma made a noise of discomfort.

“Please don’t mention it,” Kenma told him seriously. Kei smiled in spite of himself.

“Sure,” Kei said, and then, “So he’s doing… That is, he’s— How is he?”

There was the sound of shuffling on the other end of the line, and then it was Kenma’s turn to sigh. “I guess you’ll see when we get there,” he said, and Kei had to leave it at that.

-

It was another hour before Kenma made it back to their house. While waiting, Kei had finished the rest of the morning chores— changing the sheets, doing the dishes, watering the small collection of herbs and ferns on their balcony. As he worked, he tried to keep his mind blank. There was no use worrying over something that couldn’t be helped, he reasoned. There was nothing he could do until he had the full picture.

When the doorbell finally rang, Kei wiped his hands off on a towel and made his careful way to their front door. He didn’t have to open it— there was a quick clatter from the outside and then Kenma was opening the door, Tetsurou’s key in hand and a plastic bag from the department store hanging from his wrist.

“Sorry for making you go through the trouble,” Kei said apologetically, as Kenma stepped inside. “I can pay for the groceries.”

“It’s no trouble, I can pay for them,” Kenma said. He used his free hand to brush his hair away from his face; the other held open the door. “He would have made me foot the bill for lunch and dinner anyway, and this way I won’t have to listen to him nag me about eating more vegetables.”

“Right,” Kei said, and then he couldn’t help himself. He tilted his head to the side, trying to peer around Kenma’s body. “So, he’s…”

“Yeah,” Kenma said, then called over his shoulder, “Kuro.”

There was a brief moment of silence, and then a familiar head of spiky black hair appeared from behind Kenma.

Well, it was mostly familiar. For one thing, it was about ninety centimeters shorter than Kei was used to seeing it. He’d tried to prepare himself, but still found himself blinking, nonplussed.

“…Hello,” Kei said finally. It was really the only thing he could say.

A child Kuroo Tetsurou looked up at him from where he was holding on to Kenma’s hoodie. His eyes were as big as saucers, and he was wearing a pair of gray leggings and a red t-shirt with a cartoon cat on it. _Of course_ , Kei thought inanely, looking at it, _why the hell not?_

“I guess he should be around five,” Kenma said, trying to nudge the boy— Tetsurou, he was Tetsurou— forward. “I sent Tatsuo-san a picture and he said Kuro looked it. I wouldn’t really know, though; I’m no good with kids.”

“Me either,” Kei said automatically. “Tatsuo-san isn’t too worried, then?”

Kenma shrugged. “Said it was bound to happen to him sooner or later,” he said. Tetsurou stepped into the genkan finally, and the door shut behind him. “And then he told me to tell you to send him pictures, so I guess he really isn’t bothered about it. Can you do your shoes by yourself, or do you need help?” This last he said to Tetsurou, who was contemplating his sneakers. They had stars on them.

Tetsurou looked up at Kenma, and then at Kei. His eyes, impossibly, grew even larger.

“Sorry,” Kei said to Kenma. “My knee—”

Kenma just shook his head and knelt down to help Tetsurou with the velcro straps. The plastic bag rustled on the floor; he shook it off and handed it over to Tsukishima. “I bought an extra set of clothes for him and some pajamas. And I guess… crayons? What do kids like?”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Kei said. He peered into the bag. He saw Kenma had folded Tetsurou’s old clothes neatly alongside the new ones. His boots, snug at the bottom, weighed down the plastic. “We can buy the rest whenever… I mean, I don’t know how long he’s going to be like this, but the clothes are plenty. Thank you.”

“Yeah, well,” Kenma said. “Kuro can be an idiot sometimes but I’m sure he’ll snap out of it fast. Sorry, I forgot socks.” Tetsurou’s bare toes wiggled on the tiles. “Come on, don’t stand there, up.”

Tetsurou lifted up a tottery leg to climb out of the genkan, and Kei immediately caught on his hand to help him keep his balance. It was warm and small in his own. “I’m sorry you had to cut your time together short,” Kei told Kenma. “I know he was looking forward to it.”

“It’s really no big deal,” replied Kenma, straightening. He shoved his hands in his pockets and blew a strand of hair out of his face. “I would have been working anyway. I can just come up again when he’s feeling better. How’s your PT?”

“It’s going well,” Kei said, “Should be out of the brace by next month.”

“Cool,” Kenma said, and then, his capacity for small talk having apparently been exhausted, added, “I should probably go. Just text me if you need anything. I can swing by later?”

Kei shook his head. “No, no,” he said. “I don’t want to put you out of your schedule. I’ll let you know if something comes up, but we should be fine. Good luck with your competition.”

Kenma made his good byes and then headed back out. Kei and Tetsurou waved after him dutifully, and then stopped and looked at each other. The apartment seemed awfully silent.

“Well,” Kei said after a few moments of this. “Let’s make lunch.”

-

Kei wasn’t really looking forward to having a five-year-old clattering about while he tried to cook, so he set Tetsurou down in front of the TV with some paper and his crayons. They didn’t use the TV much so it took a little while for Kei to figure out the children’s programming, but eventually he found a channel that was showing _Crayon Shin-Chan._

He did a quick sweep of the room to make sure there weren’t any exposed wires or sharp objects left lying around, and then just as quickly retreated back into the kitchen. He wasn’t going to call Yamaguchi.

He called Yamaguchi.

“Yamaguchi,” he hissed into his phone. He held it up to his ear with one hand and used the other to root around in the crisper for some cabbage. “I have a _problem._ ”

“Hey, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi said cheerfully. “What’s up?”

Kei straightened, cabbage in hand. “Tetsurou,” he said ponderously, “has turned into a baby.”

There was a brief pause. “Wow,” Yamaguchi said. “That is a problem.”

“I _know_ ,” he said. He didn’t slam the cabbage down onto the chopping board, per se, but some force was involved. “What am I going to do? I don’t know what a baby wants. I gave him crayons and now he's watching kids anime. And I have to make _lunch_.”

“How is the baby holding crayons?” was all Yamaguchi said.

“He’s not a—” The full weight of the situation was beginning to hit him. Kei put his hand up to his forehead and tried to breathe in deeply. “He’s not a _baby_ baby. Kenma said Tatsuo-san said he must be around five.”

“Oh, thank god,” Yamaguchi said. “Five isn’t a baby. Tsukki, you would kill an actual baby. You don’t know anything about babies.”

“I just said that,” Kei said irritably. Although he would have told anyone the same thing, having it thrown back in his face made his hackles rise. “What am I going to do? I don’t know how to take care of a kid.”

“That’s because everybody’s too busy taking care of you,” Yamaguchi said gently, and then laughed when Kei sputtered. “Kidding. Well, five isn’t so bad. You just have to make sure you feed him and give him baths and keep him entertained.” He added, with some authority, “Killing a five-year-old is much harder than killing a baby. You got off easy.”

“I am _not_ going to— Nobody is killing anyone!” Kei said. He picked up a knife, put it down, and then said, “If it’s so easy, why don’t _you_ do it?”

“Oh no,” Yamaguchi said. “No way you’re passing this off on me. Your fiancé, your problem. Besides, if Tatsuo-san’s not on his way up to Sendai to keep you from killing his only son, then you’re probably fine.”

“Ugh,” Kei said.

Yamaguchi laughed again. “Cheer up, Tsukki!” he told him. “He’ll probably snap out of it soon. Remember, Atsumu-san turned into an actual baby and nobody managed to kill him. And he was right as rain in, like, three days! What did you fight about, anyway?”

“We didn’t fight about anything,” Kei said quickly. Yamaguchi made a disbelieving noise.

“Sure sure,” he said indulgently. “Have a good lunch, Tsukki! Call your brother if you need any more advice.”

“No thanks,” Kei said flatly, but Yamaguchi had already ended the call. With no sympathy coming from that corner, Kei just sighed and got around to making lunch. Nobody would ever call him a culinary expert, but there were pre-prepared slices of tonkatsu in the refrigerator and he was sure five-year-olds could eat those. Pretty sure.

He chopped the cabbage and got the frying oil ready. The faint sound of the TV drifted into the room, cartoonish noises that made the apartment seem livelier than it had all day. Kei scowled and made lunch and tried not to think about the way Tetsurou had quietly gotten ready this morning, how the door had clicked shut behind him without a word of good bye.

_Ugh_ , Kei thought. He sliced the tonkatsu into even pieces and plated it, and the cabbage too. They didn’t have training chopsticks, but he supposed a fork would do. It took him ten minutes to set the table, and another five to get the counter cleared and put the dishes in the sink to soak. After two minutes of standing helplessly beside the refrigerator, he took a breath and made his way back into the living room.

Tetsurou looked up at the sound of his footsteps. He was seated on a cushion on the floor, his arms around his knees. The sheets of paper on the coffee table were still blank; he hadn’t touched them. He looked awfully small. Somehow, this made Kei feel even more adrift.

Kei opened his mouth, and then closed it again. “Lunch,” he said simply.

He waited for Tetsurou to get up and then led him to the table. The chair was too low for him, but after piling a couple of cushions on the seat he was able to reach his food comfortably. Kei found half a carton of orange juice in the refrigerator and poured them both glasses.

When they were both finally seated, Kei looked from Tetsurou to the food then back to Tetsurou. Kei picked up the bottle of mayonnaise.

“Kewpie?” he said weakly. Tetsurou nodded, watching with wide eyes as Kei squeezed some onto his salad.

“Thank you,” he said quietly, then clasped his hands together and mumbled a thanks for the food. His voice was smaller than Kei had expected.

Kei stared at him for a long moment, then sighed. He dutifully took a picture of Tetsurou sawing at his cutlets and then sent it off to Tatsuo and Kenma. The rest of the meal, they spent in silence.

-

Tatsuo texted him while he was doing the dishes. Kei didn’t often correspond with his future father-in-law, who was incredibly intelligent but had a slyness running underneath the surface that he didn’t really feel needed exploring. He got enough of that Kuroo wit from Tetsurou. Still, Tatsuo seemed fond of him, and Kei liked him as much as his own natural awkwardness allowed.

_Very cute_ , Tatsuo had sent. He’d also sent a snapshot of a photo from his own house. It was a framed shot of Tetsurou as a child, grinning up at the camera, the photo rich in reds and blues. The glare of light coming off the glass covered the date. It came with the caption, _Tekkun at age 6._

Kei looked from his phone to Tetsurou, who was back on the floor, eyes glued to the television set. The channel was now showing some sort of Super Sentai series. The crayons and paper sat on the table, still untouched.

_Thank you_ , Kei sent back, along with a picture of Tetsurou watching TV. _Tetsu doesn’t seem to be talking much. I don’t know why._

_He’s very shy_ , came the reply a few minutes later. Kei had sat down on the sofa and gotten interested in the episode, in spite of himself. There was some sort of dung beetle alien terrorizing the local populace. _You’ll have to be patient with him._

Kei sighed and leaned forward, just a bit. The sound of the sofa creaking under his weight seemed to startle Tetsurou, who looked over his shoulder at him. Half his face was obscured by his ridiculous hair. Kei supposed some things really did never change.

“Uh,” Kei said. “Do you… Do you like Sentai?”

Tetsurou nodded, and then glanced back at the TV.

Okay. That was a start.

“Me too,” Kei said, and watched as Tetsurou’s attention snapped back to him. “I used to watch it a lot when I was a kid. Tetsu— Do you mind if I call you Tetsu?” A blank stare. “Tekkun?” Tetsurou hesitated, and then nodded shyly. “Okay, Tekkun. My name is Kei.” He bowed shallowly, feeling stupid.

Tetsurou bobbed his head, his eyes wide and cautious. “Hi,” he said quietly. He shuffled around to face Kei, resting his chin on his knees. His fingers picked at the carpet; his feet looked so bare and small.

Kei found himself at a loss. He had been quiet, even as a child, it was true, but this was different. He’d been aloof, perfectly polite, sometimes excitable, but never _shy_. He found himself wishing, impossibly, for Tetsurou— _his_ Tetsurou— to show up and kill the silence with some stupid joke, or a kind word. This was way beyond his powers.

“Do you like to draw?” he said after a minute. Even a baby Tetsurou would have been better than this, he thought to himself helplessly. At least babies didn’t talk. “Kenma-san bought you some, uh, nice crayons. It’d be a shame if no one got to use them.”

Tetsurou hid his face behind his knees for a bit before glancing back up at Kei, and then at the crayons on the table.

“They’re all yours,” Kei said in what he hoped was an encouraging voice. “You can draw whatever you want with them.”

Tetsurou looked back at the floor. He was quiet for so long that Kei was about to give it up and just go back to watching costumed superheroes blast lasers at the dung beetle alien in painful silence, but eventually he said, “Is it really okay?”

“Yeah, of course,” he said quickly, and then reached for the set. He peeled the flap open and tipped them out onto the table. “Look, here. You can draw the superheroes you saw, or… whatever, whatever you want. It’s all for you.”

Tetsurou picked up the orange crayon and glanced back at Kei, as if asking for permission, before bending his head to the paper and slowly, carefully, sketching out a shape.

Kei let out a breath he hadn’t even known he was holding. He felt like, ridiculously, like he had accomplished some impossible feat. As soon as he thought that, he could almost hear his Tetsurou’s ugly, braying laugh in the back of his head.

_Whatever_ , he thought, and then brought out his phone to take another photo.

-

“What are you doing?”

Kei looked up to find Tetsurou peering at him from behind the doorframe. He had left him in the living room drawing quietly an hour ago, intending to spend the rest of the afternoon doing chores. At the moment, he was trying to wrangle the dry laundry from earlier in the week, warm from having been out in the sun.

“I’m folding laundry,” he said, underscoring it by smoothing his palm over a sweater. “Are you finished drawing?”

“Yeah,” Tetsurou mumbled, wiggling his toes. He looked up at Kei, chewing on his bottom lip.

“Do you want to help me?” Kei asked, disbelievingly. He should have expected that kid Tetsurou would be weird. It was, he admitted to himself, kind of cute. But only a little bit.

“Okay,” Tetsurou said, scampering into the room and flopping down beside him. Kei gave him some socks and taught him how to match them and roll them up properly. Tetsurou applied himself with a look of concentration that made Kei want to laugh. He settled for taking another picture to send to Tatsuo.

They worked in companionable silence for a little while before Tetsurou said, very gravely, “What are you wearing on your leg?”

Kei’s hand went automatically to his knee. “It’s a brace,” he said evenly, clenching and unclenching his fist.

“What’s ‘brace’?” Tetsurou asked, trying out the word.

“It’s like… a bandage. I hurt my knee and it keeps me from moving it wrong,” Kei said. He looked down at the shirt he was folding and smoothed out the edges. It was Tetsurou’s old training shirt from high school, the collar warped and fading.

Tetsurou rolled up another sock. “Does it hurt?” he asked in a small voice.

It had hurt, when he’d landed. Kei wasn’t one for dramatics, but the sound of his knee popping wasn’t something that he was likely to forget. The feel of the court, cold against his cheek. It had hurt. The surgery had hurt. The physical therapy hurt. And the knowledge that he wasn’t likely to play again, for V-League or otherwise— that had hurt, too, surprisingly. But all he said was, “Not right now.”

Tetsurou put his small hand on top of the brace. Kei could feel the warmth of it through his sweats. “Sorry,” Tetsurou said.

Kei looked away.

-

Dinner had gone better than lunch had. By then Tetsurou had become comfortable, even cheerful, asking about the apartment, about the food, about whether Kei lived alone. The surreality of telling the five-year-old version of his fiancé that he was engaged to the thirty-year-old version of him wasn’t lost on him.

“What’s ‘fiancé’?” Tetsurou asked, before spooning some more rice into his mouth. Grains scattered across the placemat.

“It means he and I are getting married,” Kei said primly. “Maybe. Eventually.”

“Okay,” Tetsurou said. “Why don’t you have a cat?”

“We were thinking of getting one,” Kei said. This was apparently information that held some weight, as a serious expression crossed Tetsurou’s face. Feeling suddenly like a breakthrough was upon them, Kei asked him, “Do you like cats?”

“No,” Tetsurou said honestly. “I like dogs.”

Tatsuo and Kenma had replied to his periodic updates mostly positively, and with an implicit faith in Kei’s child management skills that he personally felt was unwarranted. At some point in the late afternoon, Kenma had let slip to Hinata that Kei was unwillingly learning the ins and outs of young parenthood. Hinata called him after dinner. Kei only picked up after the third try.

“I can’t believe your boyfriend is a _baby_ ,” said the 2018-2019 V-League Division 1 Rookie of the Year. “That’s so _funny._ Serves you right!”

“Shut up,” Kei said, without heat. Tetsurou was back in the living room, working on a drawing that seemed to involve a lot of spiky green shapes. “He’s my fiancé.” Hinata made a gagging sound on the other end of the line. “And he’s not a baby. He’s five…ish.”

“Nah, you’re right,” Hinata said. “Atsumu-san was a baby. You’re so lucky Kuroo-san turned into a kid. You’d kill him if he was a baby.”

“Why does everybody keep saying that?” Kei demanded.

“It’s because you’re, like, _the_ baby,” Hinata said simply. “I bet Kuroo-san spoils you. I bet he slices your cake for you and lets you sit on his lap or whatever.”

Kei flushed, because it was true. But he wasn’t about to tell Hinata that. “Well, it’s been twelve hours and _no one_ has committed infanticide, so. There.”

“Cool,” Hinata said. “What happened, anyway? Did you have a fight?”

“ _No_ ,” Kei lied. “He was supposed to go to Kenma’s esports tournament and then turned in the bathroom. Or so Kenma said.”

“Poor Kenma,” Hinata said sympathetically. “That’s rough on him. Hey, when do you think he’ll turn back? Is it weird if I start a betting pool on that? Like, would Kuroo-san get mad?”

“ _Yes_ , it’s weird, you orange-haired idiot,” Kei said, scowling. “And why would it matter if Tetsurou got mad? He’s a baby.”

“Five isn’t a baby,” Hinata told him matter-of-factly. “ _Atsumu-san_ was a baby.”

“ _I remember_ ,” Kei said, and slammed his thumb onto the end call button.

-

“Help, please.”

Kei looked up from his phone to find Tetsurou standing in the hallway, dripping wet and holding a towel around his shoulders. He stood quickly, his knee sparking with a little bit of pain, his fingers going automatically to his contact list. He had a basic understanding of first aid, but not for kids— if there was an emergency—

“What’s wrong?” he said, walking up and grasping Tetsurou by the shoulders. “Are you hurt? Did you hit your head? Let me call your dad—”

“No,” Tetsurou said, biting his lip. The fist that wasn’t holding his towel was clutching the purple loofah that Kei kept in the shower. He shoved it up towards him. It was covered in suds. “I don’t know… I can’t, umm…” He gestured wordlessly to his back, and then held the loofah back up to Kei again.

“Oh,” Kei said, taking it. It stuck to his fingers limply, like a fluffy jellyfish. “Okay… well. You could have just called me.”

Tetsurou, already on his way back to the bathroom, looked over his shoulder at Kei as if to say, _Me? With_ my _voice?_ Kei sighed and followed him in, kicking off his slippers before stepping onto the tile.

Tetsurou was already squatting on the floor, his arms around his knees again. He said, “Can you wash my hair, too?”

“Sure, why not,” Kei muttered, looking around for the bath stool. He eased himself down onto it with a grunt, stretching out his right leg carefully, and then rolled up his sleeves and his pants. It took no time at all to get a good lather up. He brought the loofah up to Tetsurou’s back, scrubbing gently over the wings of his shoulderblades, marveling at how small he was. “Next time, try and yell, okay? You could slip and hit your head if you went out without drying off.”

“Mmkay,” Tetsurou said.

Kei soaped down his back with the loofah, and then another time with a soft washcloth. The silence between them was— nice. Companionable. Even after all this Kei would never be able to bring himself to say that he was good with kids, but Tetsurou, like always, made even difficult things easy. He tried not to miss him.

He had just started massaging shampoo into Tetsurou’s hair when Tetsurou said, “Where’s your, um. Fancy?”

Kei’s hands stilled. “My fiancé?” he said. “He’s… not here right now. He’s out.”

“Okay,” Tetsurou said. When Kei moved his hands away, he reached up and shaped his hair into a shark’s fin, and then flattened it again. “Is he nice?”

“He’s very nice,” Kei said quietly. “Close your eyes.” He reached around and put his hand up to Tetsurou’s forehead, shielding his eyes before running the showerhead over his hair. The water sluiced down around his thin shoulders, rinsing out the soap and shampoo.

Tetsurou rubbed his face, and then laughed when Kei brought the showerhead back over his head. After a final rinse, Kei helped him dry off and get dressed. He showed Tetsurou the hairdryer and ran it over his head, again and again, until the soft black strands fluffed up, warm and dry.

“Did you have a nice time today?” Kei asked later, helping Tetsurou into their bed. He looked even smaller, dwarfed by the duvet and the pillows.

“Mm-hmm,” Tetsurou said sleepily. Kei tucked the blankets in around him, fluffing up a pillow and putting it in between him and the edge of the bed. Tetsurou immediately reached an arm out and pulled it to his chest, snuggling his face into the softness.

“Okay,” Kei said, leaning back and watching him. “Tomorrow we can call your dad and ask for advice, okay? And we can get you some more clothes, maybe a… a toy, if you want. Video games. I don’t know.”

“Okay,” Tetsurou mumbled, closing his eyes.

Kei sat looking at him for a few minutes, watching the rise and fall of his chest. And then he picked up one of the other pillows and headed out, towards the living room, to make his own bed.

-

Kei started awake, his heart thundering against his ribcage. The room was dark, a sliver of moonlight coming out from behind the curtains. He put a hand to his forehead and shuddered out a breath, then another, then another.

What had he been dreaming about? He couldn’t remember. The apartment seemed to stretch out around him, bigger and emptier than before.

“Ugh,” he said, throwing his arm over his eyes. It was the change in sleeping arrangements, or maybe that he’d forgotten his eye mask. Maybe the stress of finding out his partner of six years had turned into a child. Whatever. The morning would bring clarity. He’d just laid his head back when he heard it, thin and reedy.

“Kei? Kei?” It was Tetsurou.

Kei made his way to their bedroom as quickly as he could, pushing open the door and turning on the bedside lamp. The warm yellow light saw Tetsurou curled up in a ball, his cheeks wet with tears.

“Did you have a bad dream?” Kei said softly, running his hand through Tetsurou’s hair. It was lightly damp from sweat. Tetsurou nodded and knuckled at his eyes. “Do you want me to stay here with you until you fall asleep?” Tetsurou nodded again.

Kei sighed and climbed into bed behind him, leaning over him to shut the light off again with a click. He lay back down and ran his hand over Tetsurou’s back, down and then back up again, just like his mother used to do. Down, and then back up. Down, and then back up.

In the darkness it felt like time existed somewhere else. He didn’t know how long it took for Tetsurou to settle back into sleep; he wasn’t so sure if he was all the way awake himself. Every time he blinked his eyes back open, it was as if an age had passed.

The scent of their sheets and the familiar warmth of their bed had him imagining Tetsurou’s broad back, the feel of his hands rough with calluses. Tetsurou at seventeen, needling him into extra practice. Tetsurou at twenty-four, pressing Kei’s knuckles to his lips, the air between them so heavy with feeling that there was nothing that needed to be said. Tetsurou at thirty, a day ago, here in their bed, his face twisted with frustration.

_I wasn’t mad at you_ , Kei thought, or maybe spoke aloud; he wasn’t sure, _I just don’t know how to be someone you can rely on._ But before he could hear what Tetsurou said in reply, he was already fast asleep.

-

“Kei. Kei.”

“Mmf,” Kei said, burrowing his head back into the pillows. The sound of laughter, low and familiar, and then a hand stroking down from the crown of his head, caressing the nape of his neck. Kei cracked an eye open, scowling.

It was Tetsurou, back to normal. The morning light haloed his head, limning him in golden light. Annoying.

“Hey,” he said gently, his thumb stroking the patch of skin just under Kei’s hairline. “Good morning.”

“Ugh,” Kei said, flipping around so that his back was to Tetsurou. His head felt cottony with sleep but his heart was beating quickly, rabbitlike in his chest. It was confusing and unpleasant. Kei elected to ignore it.

“Baby,” Tetsurou said, snuggling up to him. “You aren’t still mad, are you?”

“Go _away_ ,” Kei told him. And then, after a moment, “No.”

“Okay good,” said Tetsurou, smudging a kiss against his ear. Kei, infuriatingly, felt his whole body heat up. That was _cheating_. “Because it wasn’t my fault.” He paused for effect. “Huh, weird. I don’t hear a sorry anywhere. Do you?”

“Ughhh.” Kei pulled the pillow up over his head. From underneath it he said, “Nngh.” Then, quieter, “Sorry.”

“Love you,” Tetsurou said sweetly, pulling him up to his chest, careful of his knee. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? I didn’t even have to ask you twice.”

Kei tore the pillow from his face and launched it at his fiancé, who dodged it easily. “I liked you _so_ much better when you were a baby.”

“Oh?” Tetsurou said with interest. “A baby? You mean like Miya Atsumu?”

“Ugh!”

But it was a happy ending, all things considered.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote down 'boyfriend' for kuroo at first and then i was like wait a second... it's my fic... i can do whatever i want.............. and now they're engaged :3
> 
> so sorry for the errors!!!!!! it would make me so happy if you enjoyed this even a little bit. thank you so much for reading!!!!!!!!!!!


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